Smiler Painting

Jean-Luc Almond is a British artist who received his BFA in 2013 from the City & Guilds of London Art School. His paintings have won various awards, including The Cass Art Commission of the National Open Art Competition, Somerset House and The Best Painting Prize at the ‘Injustice’ Open Art Competition, La Galleria, Pall Mall, judged by esteemed art critic, Edward Lucie Smith. He has been featured as a Saatchi Art 'One to Watch' and in the '20 Emerging Artists to Buy Now' Collection on Saatchi Art. His work is exhibited internationally. Notable exhibitions include Start Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, SCOPE Basel, Switzerland, The Other Art Fair and The London Art Fair. Collections of interest include Mark Cass- CEO and founder of Cass Art, Tony Elliot, founder of Time Out Magazine, Sandstorm films- UK and Arte Al Limite- Chile. Among Jean-Luc’s influences is Victorian photography. His paintings are constructed through the processes of creation and destruction, damage and repair. Jean-Luc is obsessed with the materiality and texture of the paint itself. He embraces the transformations that take place when he is no longer a slave to the image and the painting becomes more about the paint and the surface. A certain tension exists within the thick surfaces of his paintings, as paint takes precedence over representation.